The election of 12 local deputies to the 13th National People’s Congress took place Sunday, with all the eight sitting local NPC deputies succeeding in their re-election bids while four local newcomers to the nation’s top legislature were among seven candidates who ran in the election for the first time.

The election took place during the second plenary session of the Conference for Electing Deputies of the Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR) to the 13th NPC, at the Macau East Asian Games Dome in Cotai.

The plenum was attended by 466 members of the electoral Conference, which has a total of 481 members. Four of the 466 ballots cast were invalid.

The 13th NPC will start in March. Each NPC term is five years.

The session was jointly presided over by Vice Chairman and Secretary-General of the NPC Standing Committee Wang Chen and an 11-member presidium of the electoral conference.

The 11 presidium members include Chief Executive Chui Sai On and his predecessor Edmund Ho Hau Wah, who is now a vice-chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), as well as Legislative Assembly (AL) President Ho Iat Seng and his predecessors Lau Cheok Va and Susana Chou. Chui is the executive chairman of the 1Í-member presidium.

Each electoral conference member needed to vote for 12 deputies out of the 15 candidates, otherwise the vote was invalid.

According to the method for electing local NPC deputies, a candidate must get more than half of the votes of the electoral conference members who cast their ballots in the election, for him or her to reach the required prerequisite to be elected – the required prerequisite of yesterday’s election was more than 233 (466 divided by two).

Ho Iat Seng, Macau’s only member of the NPC Standing Committee, garnered the highest number of votes – 440. He was one of the eight sitting local NPC deputies who were seeking re-election.

Newcomer Dominic Sio Chi Wai obtained the highest number of votes (433) of the seven candidates who ran in the election for the first time. Sio, a businessman, is the president of local think tank Macau Development Strategy Research Centre.

Ng is the president of the Macau General Union of Neighbourhood Associations (commonly known as Kai Fong), while Lai, the principal of Keang Peng School, is a vice-chairman of the Macau Chinese Educators Association. Si, a directly-elected lawmaker, is a local Fujianese community leader.

According to previous news reports, Si gave up his own business after he became president of the Alliance for Common People Building Up Macau (API) in 2011. He is now a board member of the association.

Lao, a businessman, is the chairman of the Macau Association of Returned Overseas Chinese. long, an auditor by profession, is a vicechairwoman of the Macau Women’s General Association (commonly known as Fu Luen).
Lok is the director of Chinese-lan-guage newspaper Macao Daily News. Kou and Jose Chui, an urban planner by profession, are indirectly-elected lawmakers-cum-businessmen.

Ho Sut Heng is a vice-chairwoman of the Macau Federation of Trade Unions (commonly known as Gung Luen).

Ling, a lawyer by profession, is also a Fu Luen vice-chairwoman.

The four NPC deputies from Macau who did not seek re-election were Io Hong Meng, Lei Pui Lam, Leong lok Wa, and Secretary for Economy and Finance Lionel Leong Vai Tac.

Io, Lei and Leong lok Wa were board members of the Macau General Union of Neighbourhood Associations, Macau Chinese Educators Association and Macau Federation of Trade Unions respectively when they were elected local NPC deputies five years ago.

The other three candidates who ran in the election for the first time but failed are Fong Kai Fai (203), Kevin Ho King Lun (288) and Wong Ian Man (157).

Fong is a Gung Luen vice-chairman, while Kevin Ho and Wong are businessmen. The trio are now alternate members of the 13th NPC who would replace sitting members during their absence. The alternate member who garnered the highest votes yesterday ranks first among the trio, followed by the other two in accordance with the number of votes they got.

According to the method for electing local NPC deputies, those eligible for alternate membership of the NPC must have garnered at least one third of the votes cast by electoral conference members.

In the last election of 12 local NPC deputies for the 12th NPC that took place five years ago, there were also 15 candidates.